Deal to keep FAA operating, modernizing for four years

WASHINGTON — Lawmakers say they’ve reached an agreement on a $63 billion, four-year bill to extend the Federal Aviation Administration’s operating authority and the agency’s air traffic modernization effort.

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee said in a statement that the bill provides the long-term stable funding that the FAA needs as it transitions from an air traffic control system that’s based on World War II-era technology to one based on GPS technology.

Rep. John Mica, a Florida Republican and the committee chair, said the negotiated agreement will also help the 8 percent of the economy that’s affected by the aviation industry.

Era of making its own pulp ending for Kimberly-Clark

DALLAS — It’s only one mill, and it’s in Everett, Wash., a long way from Kimberly-Clark Corp.’s Wisconsin roots. But when the plant closes in a few weeks, it will be the end of an era for Kimberly-Clark, now headquartered in Irving, Texas.

For the first time in 140 years, the company won’t make its own pulp to turn into paper or tissue products. More important, perhaps, it will be another step in a continual transformation that began in the early 1970s, keeping Kimberly-Clark vibrant while other industrial giants have withered.

Decisions to move further away from its foundation – forest products such as trees, pulp and paper – “are part of our heritage,” said Mark Buthman, the chief financial officer.

Euro nations end 2011 with record jobless rate of 10.4%

LONDON — Unemployment across the 17 countries that use the euro ended 2011 at a record high, official figures showed Tuesday. The data came one day after EU leaders acknowledged they would have to boost economic growth with the same urgency that they had shown in combating their nations’ debts.

Eurostat, the EU’s statistics office, said the 10.4 percent jobless rate in December was the highest level since the euro was launched in 1999.

Unemployment has been steadily rising for the past year –in December 2010 it stood at 10 percent – largely because of Europe’s debt crisis, and compares badly with the U.S., where unemployment is 8.5 percent.

Ex-chief of collapsed bank stripped of his knighthood

LONDON —The former Royal Bank of Scotland chief who infuriated the British public by leading the bank toward failure and then walking away with a fat pension was stripped of his knighthood Tuesday, a rare punishment that puts him in the company of criminals and dictators.

Queen Elizabeth II “canceled and annulled” Fred Goodwin’s knighthood for the key role he played in the failure of RBS, a financial disaster that helped trigger the recession in Britain and forced taxpayers to bail out the bank, the Cabinet Office said.

Knighthoods are rarely revoked, but the government said Goodwin “had brought the honors system into disrepute” and that the “scale and severity” of the impact of his actions made it an exceptional case.

Goodwin resigned in October 2008 as the bank was failing, provoking the public’s ire by leaving with $25 million in pension benefits.